In Friday's LVC football notebook, I looked at Bethlehem Catholic's breakthrough win against Liberty and a record-breaking night by Central Catholic running back Colin McDermott.

Here's some more notes for Week 6 that didn't fit into the print package.

After two straight losses, Emmaus will try to rebound
Friday when it faces Northampton. One focus for the Green Hornets is finding a
way to jump-start their passing game.

Senior quarterback Andrew
Kerson has thrown for only 259 yards and completed 40.3 percent of his
passes through five weeks. He threw for 549 yards and completed 53.6 percent of
his passes through five weeks as a first-year starter last season.

“We might make a few little adjustments on offense,”
Emmaus coach Joe Bottiglieri (left) said. “We’re
going to stay with Andrew and tweak the passing game a little bit. The most
important thing we have to do is a better job up front blocking. We’ve got to
get him in sync with his receivers. He’s not at all.

“When we do get enough pass protection, we need to be
able to make connections. We have to really work on our timing. We’ve been
working on that.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Bethlehem Catholic coach Joe Henrich has been pleased with the progress of junior
quarterback Nick Cortopossi, who has
started the last three games for the Golden Hawks. Cortopossi has completed
53.9 percent of his passes for 330 yards and thrown just one interception. He
helped the Golden Hawks snap a 10-game losing streak last week with a 14-13 win
over Liberty.

“I think the thing I’ve been impressed with him is he’s
shown some pretty good poise for a young kid who was thrown in the way he was,”
Henrich said. “He doesn’t seem to get rattled at this point. He’s been handling
it pretty well.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Northampton has had success throwing the ball all season,
but its running game remains grounded. The Konkrete Kids finished with minus-18
rushing yards last week against Central Catholic thanks to a bunch of sacks by
the Vikings.

Northampton is averaging just 1.7 yards per carry through
the season’s first half.

“We need to focus on our run game a little bit more,”
Northampton coach Jeff Brosky said. “Give
Central credit, they did a real nice job scheming against us. They made it
tough for us to run the football. They did a nice job disguising coverages and
shutting down our run game.”

While the running game has struggled, Northampton wide
receiver Kyle George continues to be
one of the most explosive offensive players in the LVC. He now has 693
receiving yards, the second-most in Northampton history for a single season.
District 11 statistician Duke Helm
has Ryan Flamisch (814 yards) at No. 1 on Northampton’s single-season receiving
yards list.

* * * * * * * * * *

A record night by Central Catholic running back Colin McDermott (373 yards, six
touchdowns) highlighted the Vikings’ 42-12 win over Northampton last week.
Coach John Cupples was also pleased
to see his team’s pass rush generate pressure against the Konkrete Kids.

“We must have had 7-8 sacks total,” Cupples said. “Up to
this point, we didn’t have too much pressure. We got on it last Friday. That
was kind of our goal during the week, to start applying the pressure a little
bit more.”

One area where Cupples still wants to see improvement is
third-down defense. The Vikings have allowed opponents to convert too many
third-and-long chances.

* * * * * * * * * *

Easton’s lineup has returned to normal for the most part
after the suspension of six players before the Central Catholic game two weeks
ago forced coach Steve Shiffert to
shuffle players. Shiffert said earlier this week there could be a change up
front, but an inability to get in a good practice because of the rainy weather
could hold things up.

Shiffert is hoping his players come out more prepared
this week after last week’s double-overtime scare against Emmaus.

“We kind of sensed it was going to be a tough one,”
Shiffert said. “Our kids did not practice well. Emmaus usually always plays us
tough at Cottingham. We struggle with Emmaus.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Freedom coach Jason
Roeder summed up his team’s first half with one word – inconsistent. The
Patriots have alternated losses and wins through the season’s first five weeks,
leaving them 2-3 overall and 2-2 in the LVC.

“We’re
battling the consistency issue and trying to tighten up what we do and how we
do it,” Roeder said. “We’ve seen how good we can be at times and we’ve seen how
bad we can be at times. We’re trying to work toward bringing out our best.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Liberty coach Dave
Brown (right) said he has seen progress despite his team’s 0-5 start. The biggest
plus for the Hurricanes has been developing continuity on the offensive line.
He expects to start the same five-man unit for a third straight week when the
Hurricanes visit Central Catholic on Saturday night.

The comments to this entry have been closed.

Morning Call Sports Reporters Stephen Miller and Tom Housenick blog about high school and college sports action on and off the field in and around the Lehigh Valley, only at themorningcall.com.

Meet the bloggers

TOM HOUSENICK watches every move Lehigh’s C.J. McCollum makes on the court, laughs at every joke by Lafayette coach Fran O’Hanlon and watches all the Divisions II and III coaches and players do it for the love of the game. Basketball makes the cold weather season go by fast. Already can’t wait for late February and early March when each possession could result in a season ending or continuing on.

Wrapping up his ninth year at The Morning Call, STEPHEN MILLER is back for year No. 4 on the LVC football beat. He chronicled Central Catholic's state-championship run in 2010, watched Nazareth win its first LVC title in 2011 and saw the league crown tri-champions for the first time in 2012. He has also covered the Phillies, college football and a variety of prep sports while with The Morning Call. To stay updated on the 2013 LVC football season, check out the Varsity blog and follow him on Twitter @mcall_smiller.